In this paper, we summarize the outline of the special report “On Raison d’être of Management Accounting,” which was presented on August 27, 2021, at the 2021 Japan Society of Management Accounting Annual Meeting (organized by Nagasaki Prefectural University/Sasebo Campus (held remotely)). Contents of two papers (Kato 2020, 2021) and several academic presentations in recent years, are also examined. The important issues are discussed, for example, promoting “dialogue” with top management, senior management, and researchers in other fields, appealing the attractiveness of management accounting, and improving management accounting education.

The topic of indirect cost allocation continues to be an old and new basic problem in both research and practice of management accounting and cost accounting. In terms of theoretical development, new methods such as ABC, TDABC, and Resource Consumption Accounting have been proposed. In terms of practical research, analytic models and academic surveys have been accumulated. However, has the gap between theory and practice really been bridged? The application area of cost accounting has been expanding to service industries and non-profit organizations. Under the changes in business environment, strategies and business models, how are the objectives of cost accounting and the subjects of cost accounting changing in various industries, and what kind of reconsideration is urged to the knowledge of cost accounting? In order to provide an opportunity to think again about why and how to allocate costs, we have chosen “Rethinking Cost Allocation” as a theme.

By conducting case studies of Japanese Banks that reviewed its ABC, the following three characteristics were revealed. First, Bank costing has changed from consumption-based to capacity-based. Second, the actual allocation calculation based on Bank ABC has changed to resource-aggregated costing based on estimated capacity. The last feature is that the elemental reductionist approach of Bank ABC has been replaced by the holistic approach of costing. To analyze the factors that led to this change, we analyzed the trends in loans, loan interest rates, and loan expense ratios of all regional Banks during the 2000s and 2010s. As a result, it was found that the changes in market interest rates forced the Banks to change their cost accounting from the cost reduction approach to the holistic cost recovery approach. Finally, it was pointed out that similar changes may well occur in the cost accounting of other industries as in the case of Banks.

This study elucidates the characteristic of hospital costing compared with the hospital costing system using the master file corresponding to the electronic medical record data, based on previous hospital costing research in the United States. Moreover, this study considers the utilization of hospital costing under the COVID-19 pandemic from the aspects of task-shifting and medical fees revision. The object of hospital costing in the United States, especially time-driven activity-based costing, is primarily personnel cost for clinical staff, not indirect costs such as depreciation or commission. Moreover, the hospital costing systems utilize existing data considering the satisfaction of medical staff and the reduction of workload such as time study.

The problem of allocating indirect costs is an old and new problem in management accounting. In terms of the causes of indirect costs, they have the characteristics of capacity costs. If indirect costs are allocated to each product, capacity cannot be effectively managed. On the other hand, in recent years, a single organization can no longer make effective use of idle capacity. I took up the case of a network organization such as an industrial cluster, which makes effective use of idle capacity through mutual utilization of resources across organizations. I have shown that in this century, capacity management through mutual utilization of resources by network organizations is effective.

DDP (Discovery-Driven Planning) is a business management method that aims to obtain high returns from uncertain businesses. In order to solve the problem that the basis of the projection often fail, DDP supports an operation of the organizational process that responds quickly to changes inside and outside of the company. The key of DDP operation is that the planning/management department and the business department repeat and continue questions and explanations.

Buget management, which is the basis of business management, has an aspect that brings about the rational short-term emphasis which is pointed out in “Ambidexterity” and “Innovator’s Dilemma”. For this problem, I consider the significance of strengthening the risk responsiveness of companies by emphasizing projection management using DDP. I also hope that I will introduce our efforts aimed at popularizing DDP and serve as a reference for those who popularize management theory.